Truth is in the Eyes of the Beheld
by Darkday Chaos
Summary: [Complete] I am not of your world, child. I am an artist, if you will, an actor of great esteem. You are my next part. I'm already learing the script. Cadmus
1. Out of the Frying Pan

_Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire._

It was a calm Sunday. No ghosts, no question of being discovered, no weekend homework. Sam had invited Tucker and Danny to her house to- what else?- chill out and generally do nothing. They figured they deserved the rest, and no amount of boredom could tear them from it.

"Oh, God, I'm so bored. Let's do something."

Sam raised an eyebrow. So much for chilling. "Like what?"

Danny sank back down onto the couch. "I don't know," he groaned, "Anything."

Tucker slowly developed a grin. "I have an idea. You got a lighter, Sam?"

"In my room. What for?"

Tucker smirked. "Indoor s'mores."

"Tucker, that's the dumbest idea I ever heard."

---

"This is the coolest idea ever!"

Almost-empty bags of marshmallows, crackers, and chocolate were scattered all over Sam's kitchen counter. Melted and broken bits of s'mores snacks dripped onto the floor and filled the air with a delicious, hyperactive-state-inducing smell.

Tucker was holding Sam's lighter underneath the cookie she had put together, liquidizing the excessive chocolate she had pilled on it. When it was done, Tucker turned to Danny, who had gleefully been assembling his own snack out of the the few remaining ingredients.

Tucker, more hyper than usual, accidently offered the lighter a little too suddenly, and, startled, Danny fell backwards off his chair. He rubbed his head where it had hit the floor, and accepted Tucker's hand to help him up.

"Sorry, Danny."

He waved it off without grudge. "Do you guys even know what will happen if I catch on fire?"

Sam looked at him like he was a moron. "Uh, you'll get burnt?"

"Your mom and dad will kill you for wrecking your clothes?" Tucker piped in cheerfully.

Danny rasied an eyebrow. "I might disintegrate."

Shocked out of thier hyper state, Sam and Tucker listened closely to Danny's explaination.

---

A loud crash echoed around the empty street; a flash, a whoosh of air, a hybrid ghost boy slamming into a wall where there had, a split second before, been a spirit of malicious alignment.

Danny, without missing a beat, phased through the wall and into the gymnasium. The ghost was hovering near the far wall, readying a ectoplasmic blast.

It fired on Danny, but he was a step ahead. Intangible, he soared the length of the gym and tackled the ghost, shoving it through the wall and into the boiler room beyond.

He released his intangibility and pinned the ghost to the floor. He pulled back his hand to deliver a plasmic blast, but the ghost slipped free and knocked him to the floor. Getting up as quickly as the pain would allow, he flew at the ghost, grabbed hold of its wispy tail and flung it into the open boiler.

The flames burst into a glowing green bonfire before sizzling down to their previous state. A puddle of ecto-plasmic slime collected, bubbling, on the floor and faded out into nothing. Eyes wide with curiousity, Danny Phantom retreated back to his home, but not before taking one last backwards glance at the firey sparks of the boiler.

---

"You want to know... what, Danny?"

"Well, I was thinking about ghosts today, and I thought, 'What happens when you put a ghost in fire?' I wanted to ask you, since you know so much about them."

Danny Fenton looked up at his mom sheepishly, as though he thought his question was silly.

Really, he was a little worried about Maddie guessing his identity, but mostly embarrased that he knew far more about actual ghosts than she and her husband did, even though they had been obsessing about them for years.

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "Well, dear, I suppose I could run a few tests, though that is an odd thing to be thinking about."

'Sure,' thought Danny, eyeing her ghost-hunting-slash-lab suit. 'Of course it is.' He smiled back none the less.

---

Jack Fenton lifted his goggles from his face and, grinning with sucsess as usual, gestured for Danny to come into the room.

Danny looked down at the papers aranged near the lab equipment. "Did you figure it out?" He was eager to hear the answer, the question being so closely related to his still somewhat newfound powers.

Maddie grinned. "I think so!"

His parents explained that in order for spirits to interact with the living world, they had to take control of water particles in the air. This, they said gave the ghosts most of their abilities, such as flight, invisibility, and intagibility (part of which included possesion, or overshadowing).

"It's also the reason why they're so cold," Maddie told him, "They have to freeze the particles in order to keep them together."

"Like a cloud?" Danny asked, feeling he was getting the gist of it.

Maddie raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Ectoplasm is actually about eighty percent H2O, and twenty percent an other-worldy chemical that makes them glow."

"So, to answer your question Danny," Jack concluded, "If you set fire to a ghost, it destroys thier hold on reality and they melt into a puddle!"

He grinned, and, getting caught up in the subject, donned a ghost hunting machine and clicked the trigger menacingly.

Danny, slightly worried but satisfied, backed up from him and called his thanks over his shoulder as he went into his room.

---

"If I'd know about that I wouldn't've been that careless," Tucker said apologecticaly.

"It's fine. Besides, I don't want you guys thinking I'm some breakable doll that can't be taken out of the box," Danny added, gesturing with a annoyed-at-the-sky look on his face.

"I know how you feel," Sam replied, "My parents tried to home-school me until fourth grade."

Danny looked at her. "'Tried to'?"

Sam's eyes narrowed in frustration at a memory. "Don't ask."

"Anyway, I'm only a hybrid, so I might not be as effected. If I started to dissolve, I could just power down."

Tucker nodded. "True."

Sam looked at the clock above the sink. "You two should get home if you ever want to get to school in the morning. But first," she grinned evily, "how about you clean up this mess so I don't get in trouble."

"It's your house!" Tucker protested.

"It's you guys' idea."

Danny and Tucker relinquished and wiped off the counters, though after a while Sam picked up a rag so things would go quicker. When the kitchen was spotless, they all waved goodbye and headed for bed in a good mood.

-----

_To Be Continued..._


	2. Keep Your Friends Close

_Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Enemies Closer._

Danny tossed in his covers, trying to find a comfortable position. No matter how many times he fluffed up his pillow, he couldn't seem to invite sleep.

"I shouldn't've eaten so much chocolate," Danny groaned, sitting on the edge of his mattress and rubbing his head. He checked his clock.

"Midnight. Great."

Deciding he probably wasn't going to get much rest anytime soon, Danny headed downstairs to get himself a glass of water. On his way down the stairs, he looked back up to his room for a second. The door was already in shadows. It really was late.

The windows outside showed nothing spectacular, just the streets of Amity Park dark and silent. It was these peaceful times in between ghost fights that frightened Danny the most. With Sam and Tucker, and even his family, though they didn't know about his ghost half, it was pretty bearable, even normal, when nothing was going on. On his own, he always felt like something was going to happen when he least expected it, like someone- or thing- was hovering over him, watching, waiting...

Danny shivered.

"Okay, enough midnight paranoia," he scolded himself, "Where's the fridge?"

Really, he supposed all it was was annoyance at the unpredicibility of ghost attacks. It was hard to plan things out when you didn't know if you were going to have to save the town or not, and really easy to get yourself in sticky situations. Danny never liked the idea of someone else controling his life, however indirectly.

He sipped his water, basking in the soft green and red glow from various half-finished ghost hunting gadgets his parents had left out. One of them was beeping idly in a repeating pattern. Danny sighed and drained the glass.

As he was walking past to go back upstairs, the machine's beeping got louder and faster. He stopped, an eyebrow raised at it. He kept walking- and the beeping faded back down. He paused, took a step backward, and it got louder again. Danny shrugged and climbed the stairs to the upstairs hallway, and into his room.

Danny was able to go to sleep this time around, but after only a few minutes he tossed and turned more violently than before, calling out and making faces, twisting and kicking fitfully, before finally stopping. Sitting up, his covers askew, he opened his eyes. They glowed red, the numbers of the digital clock reflecting off them. Twelve nineteen a.m.

He pulled his covers back onto his bed and curled up in them. He didn't stir again until morning.

---

It was a typical Monday morning- Dash beating up on the first unpopular kid he came across, Paulina smirking at bed-heads, students groaning, teachers glaring, and a general half-detatchment from school.

Typical, to everyone except Danny, Sam, and Tucker.

"Isn't it weird," Sam said under her breath, "that we haven't seen a ghost in weeks?"

"Tecnically, it is a bit weirder to constantly see them, Sam. We're the weird ones."

"You got that right, Foley!" Dash guffawed as he walked past.

Tucker's eyes narrowed. "I'm not worried. These things are random, remember? There's no schedual-obsessed evil ghost mastermind planning out all our problems day by day."

He was about to say something to Danny, but hesitated when he saw his friend's expression. He looked anxious, worried. When he caught Tucker's eye, he gestured away from Sam.

"I guess you're right," she replied, taking a book from her locker, "Maybe it's Spectre Skip Day or something."

Sam shut her locker and turned to empty space. "...Tucker? ...Danny?"

The aimless chattering of students was her only answer.

---

"What's wrong, Danny?"

The ghost boy looked around to make sure no one was watching.

Tucker felt confused. "And why can't we tell Sam?"

"Sorry, Tuck," Danny apologised, still looking around, "but I really have to ask you something. We might have to go somewhere less conspicuous..."

His eyes widened. "Is it about..." Danny nodded.

"Here, Danny, this looks empty."

Tucker grabbed his arm and lead him into an unused classroom and shut the door. It was dim, the only light comming from the hall outside. Chairs were stacked in the corner and there were dots in the walls where tacked posters had been removed. They stepped out of view of the hallway.

Looking a bit sheepish, Danny said, "I didn't want to tell Sam until I was sure of what I was seeing."

"Which is?"

"This morning, when I woke up, I saw my eyes in the mirror. They were red."

Tucker raised an eyebrow. "We're all a little sleepy, Danny, it's nothing to get upset over. It is Monday, you know."

Danny looked at him, irked. "Not that. The pupils, the inside!"

Now he could see why Danny was so uptight. Red pupils almost always had to do with ghosts. From where he was standing, however, Tucker couldn't see anything unusual in Danny's eyes. They were his normal, non-ghost light blue, and pupils black and dull.

Almost as if reading his thoughts, he shook his head. "You can't see it from there. Come close."

Obliging, Tucker took a step forward, getting to within an inch of Danny's face. He looked for what Danny had been talking about, and sure enough, there was a tiny, sharp red glow right in the center of each eye. What could this mean? Was it some sort of new power he was developing?

Tucker was too wrapped up to notice that his friend's demeanor had melted from worried and uptight to cool and relaxed.

Danny's mouth curved up in a smirk. His hand came up behind Tucker's head and held it there. His breath was as cold as ice.

Tucker's eyes widened and his heart rate skyrocketed. Something wasn't right. "Danny, what..."

Without giving him time to finish his sentance, Danny closed his eyes, tilted his head to the side, and came forward until their lips met. Tucker's heartbeat became so loud, it was the only thing he could hear- and then nothing.

Danny sucked Tucker's soul out and let his lifeless body crumple to the ground like an abandoned toy. Danny could feel power coursing through him, cold and liquid. When he opened his eyes, they were glowing completely red. He grinned wryly.

"Thank you, Tucker. That was helpful."

-----

_To Be Continued..._


	3. All for One

_ All for One, and One for All._

Sam's eyes narrowed and she threw her hands up in the air, still holding her textbook.

"Great. Just leave without me, why don't you," she griped at the empty space where Danny and Tucker had been a moment before, getting a few odd stares.

The bell rang, and the other students were slowly making their way to class and emptying the hallway. Sam had been late to class before, but it had always been unavoidable. Now, if there was a ghost, Danny and Tucker decided to go off by themselves and not even tell her.

Of course there was no question of wether to go to class or look for them. No matter wether there was a ghost or not, the boys never were completely safe from anything.

"Not even from me," Sam said aloud as she, eyes narrowed, went around the corner and through the hall, looking out for a sign of her friends, "I'll squish them for leaving."

She had made it halfway to the gym when a figure appeared around another wall.

Sam stopped. At first glance it seemed like someone very familier, but when his head lowered from the reflecting florecent lights, she saw that his eyes were completely glowing red. He took a step forward and all the warmth seemed to flee from Sam's body.

It was Danny.

Sam asked him where he and Tucker had gone. He only gazed at her, a strange look on his face.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was getting edgy, if not downright suspicious. In her consious mind, however, all she felt was a weird, out-of-place feeling, as well as worry.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Danny said, taking a step forward, sounding truly apologetic, "I didn't mean to leave you by yourself without saying anything. It's just, well..."

He gestured to his red eyes with a sheepish expression. Without willing it, Sam found herself nodding. "What is it?" she heard herself ask.

"I don't know," he answered, taking another step forwards. He was getting too close. Sam took a step back.

"I really am sorry for leaving. I won't ever again. I promise." Another step.

Sam backed up, laughing nervously, trying to think of a way to get off the uncomfortable topic. "What are you going to do," she said weakly, "if you can't get them back to normal?"

"Contacts." A bland, shrugging reply, a move closer. He wasn't interested in the topic.

Sam bumped into the wall behind her. Danny took one last step, and placed his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders. "I'll never leave again," he repeated, his voice low and soft. By now, Sam's danger sensor was going haywire. She knew she could quite easily push Danny out of the way and make a run for it. But a large part of her didn't want to hurt Danny at all, not even a little shove. He was her friend, and she couldn't run from him.

"Danny..."

He blinked. His expression turned to one of pain, and his hands clenched at the walls that he was now supporting himself with. His eyes, which had shut tight, snapped open.

Blue eyed and shocked, Danny reeled. He took a tumbling step back, his gaze locked with hers. "Sam! Run! I can't-"

She didn't need to be told twice. By the time his eyes were red and glowing again, the ghost having taken back control, Sam was already out of sight.

Running down the hallways, Sam scolded herself. "He was being posessed! How obvious was it? Red eyes, weird behavior... And I almost fell for it. Good thing I can take a hint. Oh, what now? What do I do now...?"

She skidded to a stop when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. A disused classroom was on her right, the lights off. She backed up a bit to widen her feild of veiw, then gasped. Just through the corner of the window, she saw Tucker's hat.

She yanked the door open. There was Tucker, laying on the floor, eyes closed.

"Tucker..." she half-whispered, half afraid that he wouldn't answer. "Tucker, you okay? Wake up."

He didn't seem to be breathing. She knelt beside him and shook him. "Tucker!" His head lolled to the side.

Spotting his jacket pocket, she reached into it and pulled out his PDA. "Oh, look! I'm stealing your geek toy!" She waved it in his face. "Tucker, you'd better stop me!"

He didn't even twitch. This was serious.

Sam bit her lip and took a deep breath."It's fine, it's okay. He's fine... I've got to do something about Danny. I need his help."

She tugged off Tucker's backpack and unzipped the front pocket. A Fenton Thermos was laying on the top of a textbook and a pair of headphones. She took it out and closed the backpack, resting Tucker's head against it. She stood up.

"I'll come back," Sam promised him, giving his limp form one last glance before leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

---

"- is based on secrecy, isn't it? If one person figures out what you are and what you're doing, it will all crumble down, won't it?"

The ghost in Danny's body contorted his face into a smirk. "You know the ways of an actor such as myself well."

"I'm an individualist. Creativity comes with the package. I value the personal soul." Sam's grip tightened on the thermos, her posture calm and ready. "Which is why I plan on saving Danny!"

"Which is why I plan to eliminate you."

The ghost raised Danny's hands, and plasmic energy gathered around them. Sam jumped to the side as the green glowing ball flew down the corridor and crashed into the lockers.

Sam ran past Danny's body, headed for the gym doors. "The first person I'm going to tell," she called over her shoulder, "Is Jack Fenton!"

"Oh you can't be serious, " the ghost muttered, dropping Danny's voice and taking up his own, accented one, "That buffoon? You really have it in for me, don't you?"

Sam desperately hoped there was no first period gym class. She burst through the doors, the ghost on her tail. The room was empty and the lights were off. Her footsteps echoed loudly against the smooth ceiling and floor.

Too late, Sam perked her ears for the sound of attack. The plasmic blast caught her behind the knee and she was sent sprawling, dropping the thermos. Cringing, she held her leg with both hands and tried to reorient herself.

"What are you going to do now," she goaded through clenched teeth, trying to distract the ghost while working her way to a standing position. "Now that I know your plan? I've ruined it for you. If you kill me and they find my body, it will be the same as if I shouted you out to the whole world. You'll never get another victim."

Danny's body stopped next to Sam, looking down his nose. The ghost seemed to consider something. The power gained from Tucker's soul made his eyes glow bright.

"Do you know me, Sam Manson, little girl? Ever heard of Cadmus, the greatest ghostly actor of all time?"

Sam rolled her eyes and prepared for a long speech. "Oh, are you famous, then? Sorry, can't say that I have."

Cadmus allowed the sarcasm to slither around for a second.

He looked her straight in the eyes, a smirk playing on Danny's lips. "Exactly."

Sam snached up the thermos and pointed it menacingly at him.

"Ah, ah, ah." Cadmus shook Danny's finger at her. "You do that and your poor friend Tucker will be merged with me forever."

Hope flared up in Sam and lit her eyes. "So I _can_ still save him!"

Danny's hand came over his face as Sam grinned at Cadmus. "Great."

"By the way," Sam added, checking her watch, a new sort of cockyness taking over in response to her relief, "You better catch me quick. First period ends in twenty minutes." She bolted off in the other direction, headed for the far gym wall, where the door leading outside was casting a square beem of sunlight on the floor.

Cadmus glared. "Oh, this is exausting." Danny's body ran after her.

Sam grinned as she heard his footsteps behind her. "I'm suprised this is working," she muttered to herself. Just before reaching the outside door, Sam changed direction and ran through the door and down the steps that lead to the school boiler room.

Cadmus hesitated. "Not outside? She's up to something. I can't follow," he told himself, then hardened his expression. "No! I have been waiting too long for a proper opportunity. I must get that Manson girl's soul!"

As soon as he entered the room, Sam, who had been hiding behind the door, slammed it shut. She was between him and the door.

The boiler had been flung open, and the flames were leaping out of the furnace, lighting the entire room in a flickering, red and orange light. The heat was almost unbearable for even Sam, who was starting to sweat.

Danny's body spun around, Cadmus realising the situation he'd put himself in. "It's too late!" he called to her over the roar of the flames, "Your friend Tucker has been completely consumed, and Danny also is adding to my power. You will have lost them both, Sam!"

The ghost's words took a moment to sink in. She frowned. "You're bluffing."

"That may be. But think about it, Sam," Cadmus continued, "What do you think I do with the souls I eat? I'm no storage container. Your friends are lost forever."

Sam's eyes widened, submiting to the idea. Her knees sagged and she slid halfway down the wall. "Then... there's nothing..."

"That's right.There's nothing you can do now."

Sam glared at him. "Nothing stopping me from getting at you!"

She stood up and walked toward Cadmus, keeping her back to the door and her eyes on the furnace. He backed up.

"You can't win, Sam." Danny's hands glowed with ectoplasm.

"Neither can you," she retorted calmly. "You may have taken everything from me, Cadmus, but at least I can stop you from doing it again."

She jumped to the side when the blasts came at her, barely dodging them in time. Cadmus made a move at the door, but Sam stepped in the way. The fire was licking out at everything it could, a few flames brushing against the back of Danny's neck. Cadmus shuddered.

"You don't really want to do this."

Sam took the front of Danny's shirt in her fists and forced Cadmus backwards. He tried to will forth a plasmic energy blast, but it just fizzled and dripped off his hands. "You'll kill Danny before you kill me."

She gave him a hard shove. Danny's back hit the bottom edge of the boiler frame and Cadmus let out a sharp yell when it burned him.

"It's too late to save them. You said so. You're starting to contrdict yourself, Cadmus," said Sam, pushing him farther back, straight into the flames so that they were wreathing him six feet in all directions, "That means I'm winning. I'm gonna fry you until there's no body left, then I'm still going to hold onto you, until your ghost fries too, you murderer."

He struggled and scrambled under her weight forcing him into the furnace, making faces, drooling, and occasionally twitching. It was hard to hold onto him, even harder because of the heat and light. Sam was getting woozy from dehydration.

He relaxed. His eyes opened. The flames reflected off them, making them glow orange and red. "Sam..." It was Danny's voice. "Sam, help, I'm burning...!"

It was true. Danny's clothes had caught fire, and so had some of his hair. His skin almost looked like it was dripping, although it could have been heat waves obscuring her vision. His hands reached up and held her wrists, hanging onto them for support, bent backwards into the flames. Danny's skin was hot and sticky.

"Shut up," Sam growled at him, giving him a straight, sharp glare. "Never say my name again. You aren't worthy of it. Shut _up_!" He had opened his mouth to speak. Her hands held on tighter to his shirt and forced hims torso back even further. He bent at the middle to avoid the scalding metal.

"Sam." His voice was pleading, his eyes wide. "Why are you doing this? It's me! Danny..."

"Never," Sam spat vehemously, "Use his voice again. Face me like a man, Cadmus. I know it's you. You aren't leaving. Ever."

Danny's face glared. "Curse you, girl." Cadmus' voice. Danny's body glowed for a moment, the green almost orange in the firey blaze.

Cadmus flew out of Danny's body and to the far wall, away from the flames. There was a ectoplasmic connection still, from him to Danny. It sucked away his power, his red glow weakening. The connection snapped back into Danny and his body fell limp. Sam caught him before he hit the metal and pulled him to the ground beside her. The flames on him died down.

Cadmus went ingangable and flew for the wall. In a flash Sam whipped out the Fenton Thermos and sucked him in.

She grinned wryly at it, tossing it from one hand to the other. "You can bluff, and so can I."

Feeling victorious and tired, Sam lost her will to stand, and almost fell to the ground. She steadied herself by leaning against a wall. Reaching over to the control knob, she cranked it back down to normal level. The blaze receded, and she closed the furnace gate and latched it, getting a small burn on her hand from the heated metal.

Finally, exausted and burning hot, Sam fell down next to Danny and put her hand on his shoulder. "Danny, are you okay?"

He screwed up his face in pain.

"Can you talk?"

His eyes fluttered open. They were dry and watery, but they were blue. "Sam, this really hurts," he groaned, "I feel like I've been slammed into the sun. What happened?"

Sam rubbed his forearm. "I'm really sorry I had to do that. I hope it isn't too bad."

Danny looked confused. "'Isn't too...?'" Suddenly he remembered. "Oh my god! Tucker! Sam, are you guys alright? Ahh!" He winced when he tried to sit up.

"Here." Sam took his hand and they helped eachother into a standing position.

"I was fighting him the entire time," Danny said fervently, "Sometimes I could hear and see, sometimes he was in complete control. When he got Tucker... I couldn't let him get you too. Are you both okay?"

Sam held his hands together in hers. "Danny, listen. About Tucker. Do you know what happened?"

He considered. "The ghost sucked out his soul, and... I... I can _feel_ him, Sam. Inside me." His eyes widened. "Sort of like a second heartbeat, almost. Really warm, but not fire-warm. More like a blanket. Or a puppy!" He put a hand on his forehead. "Wow this is weird."

Sam smiled, bemused. "A techno geek puppy, maybe."

"Wait. If I have his soul, then... what's happening to Tucker?"

"Oh gosh!" Sam pulled him up the stairs. "I can't belive I forgot! We have to hurry!"

---

"Do you think you can get him back out?"

Danny and Sam sat down next to Tucker's body, just out of sight from the door. It was seven minutes untill first period classes were over.

"I think so. This eat-the-soul thing is pretty easy to figure out. If I grab hold of him- it- and use it, I could probably be alot more powerful. It would get used up, of course, like a dead battery. That's only if I control it. But, if I hold it, nudge it, gather it up..." He seemed to be concentrating on something. He relaxed his focus and looked at Sam. "How am I supposed to give it back? If I go intangible it would just fly off in a random direction and disappear."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "How did you get it in the first place?"

---

"You mean I have to go Prince Charming on Tucker?"

Sam grinned wryly. "Think of it as CPR," she replied conversationally. "Technically, you are breathing life into him."

Danny groaned and buried his face in his hands. He raised his head and took a deep breath. "Try not to laugh," he pleaded, "I'm going to concentrate."

"Sure thing, Danny." Sam gave him a thumbs-up, sniggering behind her arm.

Danny sighed, irked, not shifting his gaze until Sam said, "Okay. I mean it this time," and stopped laughing.

Danny felt deep inside of himself, focusing on gathering up all of the parts of Tucker's soul into his lungs. When he was sure he got all of it, he bent over Tucker and breathed it into his mouth, making sure nothing could escape. Tucker's eyes flickered open.

You could hear his scream all the way from Wisconsin.

Sam burst out laughing, doubled over in fist-pounding abandonment. Danny, sheepish, grinned nervously and tried to get Tucker to stop backing up and wiping his lips on his sleeves. It took a while.

---

"So, what's the collateral damage this time?"

Sam tossed the thermos to Tucker and he stuck it in his backpack. Jazz walked around the corner. She looked a bit red, and her tounge was hanging out like a dog's.

"They really need to fix the school's ventilation system," she complained to herself, not noticing Danny. "I'm gonna have to take a cool bath when I get home."

The three exchanged looks, and laughed. "That's one."

"Second-degree burns," Tucker put in, looking at Danny. He lifted his shirt. There was a deep red line going across his lower back.

Sam inhaled sharply. "I'm really sorry, Danny."

He was about to reply when Dash walked by. "Ah ha ha! You look like you've been put through a blender, Fenton!"

Tucker ticked off the tally on his fingers. "You're burnt, and your parents will kill you for wrecking your clothes."

"At least you didn't disintegrate," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah." Danny sighed. "You guys want to go with me to the nurse?"

"Why not," said Tucker, "You and Sam can get fixed up while I slowly recover my dignity."

"Lancer is going to kills us," Sam said thoughtfully, walking alongside Danny and Tucker, "we'll try to explain ourselves, get detention, and go to second period. Why does this feel like a typical Monday to me?"

"Because it is."

"Sleeping Beauty."

Tucker's eye twitched. "I told you to stop saying that!"

Danny smiled, turning the handle of the nurse's office. "Let's just relax. I think we deserve it."

_**The End.**_


End file.
